Here is a number that might make you check the treeline. There are roughly 10,000 black bears living in the U.P. That works out to about one bear for every 30 people up here.
The entire U.P. is considered high-density bear country, and for most Yoopers, that is just part of life.
These are American black bears, the only kind Michigan has. No grizzlies, no browns. And the U.P. is where they thrive, holding around 83 percent of all the bears in the state across some 35,000 square miles of forest, swamp, and berry country.
If anything, there are more of them than there used to be. Michigan limited bear hunting licenses back in 2012 to let the population grow, and it worked. The U.P. bear count climbed more than 20 percent over the following decade.
What makes a bear a bear, more than anything, is its nose. A black bear’s sense of smell is thought to be even better than a dog’s. It can pick up the scent of food from a mile away and remember exactly where it found an easy meal for years afterward.
That nose is mostly pointed at berries. Black bears are omnivores that spend the summer fattening up on raspberries, blueberries, and insects, with the occasional fawn or acorn haul thrown in.
And despite their size, they are not looking for a fight. Black bears are shy by nature, and the odds of one actually attacking a person are extremely low. Most of the time, a bear that smells you will simply melt back into the woods.
The trouble starts when a bear learns that people mean free food.
A bird feeder, an unsecured trash can, a greasy grill, or a bowl of dog food on the porch will pull a bear right into the yard, and once it finds a meal, it remembers. So the golden rule up here is simple: do not feed the bears, even by accident. Bring in the feeders in summer, lock up the trash, and clean the grill.
There is a hard truth behind that rule. A bear that gets too comfortable around people usually ends up being put down. As the old saying goes, a fed bear is a dead bear. Keeping your distance is not just safer for you, it is what keeps the bear alive.
If you want a guaranteed, safe look at one, America’s largest bear ranch near Newberry is home to dozens of rescued bears you can see up close.
Out in the wild, the dense forests of the Porcupine Mountains hold some of the highest bear numbers in the state.
So yes, the U.P. is full of bears. But ask just about any Yooper and they will shrug. Keep your trash locked up, give them their space, and the bears and the people up here get along just fine.
Featured image: American black bear. Photo by Iwolfartist via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0. Enhanced and resized for YooperHub.
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